[infinite_spin]

> It's as much "active destruction" as telling someone to eff themselves.

I'm no lawyer.. but this seems relevant: https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/1030

> knowingly causes the transmission of a program, information, code, or command, and as a result of such conduct, intentionally causes damage without authorization, to a protected computer.

[nialv7]

if someone told you to `rm -rf --no-preserve-root`, and you did it without even checking what the command does. is it their fault or yours?

[infinite_spin]

both, and responsibility would depend on who had the greater knowledge of its ill effects

if I went around telling people new to linux to use that command to unlock some hidden feature, I would bear most if not all of that responsibility

[8note]

> a protected computer

i dont think in any sense that these computers are protecting if they are intentionally running absolutely anything

there's no lock being bypassed, just a polite comment

[IAmBroom]

As someone else noted, this software is from that remote, tiny portion of the world that is not subject to US law.

[infinite_spin]

Not being a subject under US law does not prevent an individual from being held responsible under those laws. The US courts can still be used to extradite, or otherwise bring litigation to, a foreigner.

Furthermore, Germany has similar legislation: https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/englisch_stgb/englisch_st...

> (1) Whoever unlawfully deletes, suppresses, renders unusable or alters data (section 202a (2)) incurs a penalty of imprisonment for a term not exceeding two years or a fine.

So... I'm honestly not sure what you were trying to accomplish here, but even under German laws this behavior appears illegal.

[queenkjuul]

If someone else installs it, the author didn't knowingly cause the transmission to the protected computer, the installer did

[infinite_spin]

then slipping malware into a repository wouldn't violate this law either, which we both know isn't true

their intent is clear: to destroy information on another person's computer, when that person expects that not to happen (it's a testing library, not a nuclear weapon)

[entrope]

Based on the wording of the law, I think the relevant transmission is when the damage-causing command goes to the LLM. Who causes that transmission? I would say it's the person who wrote software to generate the command.